Best P4 Motherboard

[Woz]

Well, I know this will spark a lot of differing opinions, but I value the insight this community provides, so bring it on!

My PIII 600E OCed to 800 on an Asus P3V4X is begining to show it's age and I think it might be time for an upgrade. I do not want AMD, so please do not offer any opinion if you a single-minded fan of AMD. I want an Intel Pentium 4 1.6 Northwood. I have had various difficulties with my current VIA chipset, and a specific problem now under XP with my video drivers which I think may be VIA related. So, I don't think I want another VIA chipset. I will overclock, that is the reason for choosing the 1.6 Northwood. Prices for good DDR are the same as Rambus now, so that is not an issue either. Is there a good 850 board out there that OCs well?

Help me find my new MB and give a poor P4 1.6 a fast, stable home....

 

[Drsignguy]

From What I have seen and heard, Abit and Asus seem to be your best bet! You might pay a bit more but they are as stable as they come. I have a Asus <P4T-E> and it overclocks nice but it gets unstable when I get it up to 120 FSB. I have a P4 2.2 Northwood and it gets up there. Its the RAMBUS that holds me back. It tends to be a dicy thing since it (RAMBUS) is very sensative to overclocking. Fast as hell though! The Asus P4B266 I have heard that you can overclock very well and in here they state more settings for the jumpers. So, As an Asus fan and a Pentium fan, I think you cant go wrong. You might pay a bit more but they are stable and if you get the right combo in HS/F, It will Last! Good Luck!

My Rigs


Just a reminder, I have OC'D the CPU to 2.6+ Manually, not the Jumpers (yet) I am in the process of pulling a rabbit out of my hat!

 

[Underclocked]

Couldn't begin to tell you what THE best P4 motherboard is, but I can tell you that I just ordered an Epox 4BDA2+ from Outpost.com.

Read review HERE.

I tried a Gigabyte GA-8SRX and the thing was haywire. Think I got a lemon. Going to go with an Intel chipset for now.

 

[meefmah]

Has anyone here had experience with? ABIT SD7533, ASUS P4S333, BIOSTAR M7SXF, ECS P4S5A, MSI MS6547 All with SIS645.

 

[cockeyed]

Search this motherboard forum using the keyword "Rankings" and you will find a link to a motherboard rankings list. The article might help you decide. Abit and Asus will be mentioned a lot in these forums, but I would not overlook the EPoX 4BDA2A+ as already mentioned. I have the EPoX 4BDA (w/o raid) and it is as solid as a rock.

 

[Einhverlykill]

I have the Asus P4S333 mobo and it?s brilliant. Only thing I can complain about it is when I updated my bios. The board came with bios version 1001. But after I updated it to 1004 the USB port doesn?t work when Windows XP starts. I had to use the USB card that came with the motherboard. I have now updated the bios to 1005 but it still doesn?t work.

 

[Barrei]

Hi There are several good boards out there, but I would strongly recommend Gigabyte 8irxp Usb 2.0, ata133, RAID, Dual bios, highly overclockable, cpu agp and memory voltage adjustments, DDR memory up to 3 gigs, and very stable, if you look at the reveiws this board wins almost every one , Anandtechs editors gold choice award , LAN and sound and RAID chips used on this board are much better than most manufacturers use on there boards. Good luck in your choice!!

 

[senior guy]

Wait just another month, so you can check-out the i850e chipset boards (with PC1066) or SiS654DX boards (with DDR333/400).

 

[meefmah]

I believe the 645DX supports the 533mHz FSB in the upcoming processor as well. Edit: I thought the current 645 supports DDR333.

 

[CoDerEd]

I have MSI 845, It was easy to OC, too easy, I went up to 133 without any mods,
and went up to FSB 140 with only increasing the Vcore to 1.65v.
I'm happy with with it now, probably will try to do something else
like increasing the vcore to 1.75v, after a month or so.

I heard Gigabyte P4 Titan DDR (GA-8IRXP) is good to,

they're both [MSI and Gigabyte]have USB2.0 and RAID

See this Review

 

[Woz]

The Asus P4S533 is sounding really good. I've never had a SIS chipset however. Any opinions on SIS reliability and speed?

 

[buckys]

I just build a system for my daughter and used a MSI645 worked lika a dream you disable sound etc in the bios and you can get from newegg for about $80 including shipping.

 

[DinoGucci]

wait for the P4S533 Motherboard with the SIS645DX chip. that board will do miracles, i am telling you.

 

[Jwyatt]

MSI 845ultra is decent for OCing. Im running mine at 166fsb with my 1.6a it yeilds 2650mhz. Stable, but i need some better cooling. The biggest grip i have about the MB is when you go over 140fsb it automatically sets the mem timings to the lowest settings with no way around it besides some bios hacking.

 

[DoubleL]

I would wait on the P4T-E or P4S533 they look to be as good as a Athlon system

 

[Rainguy]

<< I have the Asus P4S333 mobo and it?s brilliant. >>


I'd have to agree. Best board I have ever owned and SiS chipsets have been the bomb for me for the last year....all of them are rock solid. 1.6A@2.5
Wish it had the other serial port on the backplate and onboard RAID but, I put in a Promise Fastrack TX2000 ATA133 RAID card and am very happy
I have not been thrilled with my i845D builds which were no where near the SiS boards in overclocks. The Fire Dragon is very nice, just not a good overclocker.

I will get an Asus P4S533 as soon as it is out though....should also be a winner.

 

[CoDerEd]

MSI 845ultra is decent for OCing. Im running mine at 166fsb with my 1.6a it yeilds 2650mhz

How did you set it up, what's your vcore, i'd love to try

 

[Nighthawk69]

I may also be looking into getting a P4 1.6a and mobo. It looks like I should wait for the new Asus P4S533 mobo, so does anyone know when this will be available?

 

[ahsia]

I have the Gigabyte 8SRX, so I will vouch for this board. My P4 1.6A is OC'ed to 2.22GHz, although I can run it at 2.32GHz, but Prime95 will give rounding errors. At 2.22GHz, my system is absolutely stable, no crashes whatsoever. People have had lots of success with ASUS P4S333 as well. SiS645 boards have done extremely well, and with DDR333, performance even surpasses Intel 850 with RAMBUS when memory is overclocked. My memory scores are 2524MBs/2557MBs, which are higher than Intel 850 PC800 CL2 RDRAM scores on Sandra. Anyways:

SiS645
1. Gigabyte 8SRX
2. ASUS P4S333

Intel 845
1. Asus P4B266
2. MSI 845 Ultra-AR

Intel 850
1. ABIT TH7-II
2. Asus P4T-E

Good Luck!